Rape suspect, Nicholas Rossi, who posed as an Irish orphan named “Arthur Knight,” has been extradited to the US.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, on December 14, Edinburgh judge and local sheriff, Norman McFadyen, ordered Rossi to be extradited from Scotland to the US to face a rape charge in Utah.
Rossi, also known as Nicholas Alahverdian, left Edinburgh Airport Friday on a private flight to Utah, BBC reports. He is wanted for a 2008 charge in which he’s accused of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in Orem.
McFadyen called Rossi’s claims of being an Irish orphan “implausible” and “fanciful” before the ruling. Rossi has been fighting his return to the U.S. since his December 2021 arrest at a Glasgow hospital.
At the time, Rossi was receiving treatment for COVID-19.
Since then, Rossi appeared in court multiple times and given several television interviews while using a wheelchair and an oxygen mask. Throughout these appearances, he has maintained that he is an Irish orphan named Arthur who has never been to America.
US police alleged that he has changed his name numerous times, attacked his former girlfriend, pushed her down, and insisted on sex, despite her pleas for him to stop.
He’s reportedly also wanted in Rhode Island for failing to register as a sex offender, and the FBI charged him with fraud in Ohio, where he was previously convicted of sex-related offenses in 2008. He’s also accused of faking his death to avoid capture.
BBC reports that Rossi sat “slumped in his wheelchair” while appearing via video during last month’s hearing. At one point, he raised his head and yelled, “Disgrace to justice,” before the video link was stopped by a court clerk.
Last November, McFadyen ruled that the defendant was indeed Nicholas Rossi and not Arthur Knight, despite Rossi’s claims. McFayden added that Rossi was “as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.”
“It follows that I must send the case of the requested person Nicholas Rossi to the Scottish ministers for their decision whether he is to be extradited,” the sheriff said.
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[Feature Photo via Pawtucket Police Department]
